The Waiting
by 26Chapters
Summary: Katrina's life after Purgatory. Assuming that she did perform the spell, and Abbie left Purgatory as well. It's set in my Season 2.


**This fic has some abused words, so I'm warning you just in case. Also, I used (with permission) some parts from 'The Gaze' by deweydell25 for the fic, so a thank you to her. I didn't want to do the fic without her fic.**

Purgatory had been a woeful place, it had nothing but misery to offer her. It was thickly gaunt, so arid of life that hope was as rare as a solar eclipse. To dare hope in Purgatory, had been a risk that yielded dashing hopes. Yet she held solace in the promise of her husband, 'I will free you from this hell. We will defeat Moloch, and we will be together again.' That promise, kept her warm, believing that she and him, would once again be together. But, given the opportunity now, now that he has kept his promise of freeing her, she would choose to return to Purgatory, to be spared the hell she's going through here on earth.

It was in Purgatory, when Katrina watched them, that she just knew.

_**She knew by the way he held her so closely when they said farewell.**_

_**The way he lovingly, oh so sweetly cradled her head as he told her, 'Remember our bond.'**_

_**She knew when she saw her lovely eyes tear with emotion, as she clutched him so tightly.**_

_**She knew as his gaze was so reluctant to leave her, when time ran out and they had to depart.**_

_**She knew this was so much more than a friendship between them.**_

They didn't know, but Katrina knew.

She knew when she asked him what the thing he had in his hands was, and his answer was, 'It's Abbie's.' That didn't tell her what it was, only something else, especially how he said her name.

The way he way kept glancing moment after moment at said thing in his hands, and when she asked him why, he replied, 'I'm not all that sure.' (It was a cell phone, a smartphone, she'd learned).

She knew by the way he walked, faltering every tenth step as though he wanted to turn back.

She knew when he mentioned her name more than thrice in narrating something to her, 'Abbie said; Abbie doesn't believe; Abbie taught me.'

She knew by the way he insisted that they had to go back for Abbie, now that she's performed the binding spell. It wasn't that he insisted that gave him away, rather it was that he said it only once, with heart and a firmness she's never known from him before.

But Ichabod didn't, he didn't know.

And Katrina knew that Abbie didn't either.

But Katrina knew.

From the way her eyes shone when he saw he'd returned. Or the overly big smile she wore as she strode in three steps, (for her short legs and the distance that was between them, three steps were a record) to him. She didn't know from the way she cried when he embraced her, and apologised for making the mistake of leaving her by herself.

Even now, they don't know, but Katrina does.

They've accepted her (whether willingly, or out of obligation) into the daily routine of their lives. Abbie picks him (the both of them, because what would she do by herself) up early in the morning at the cabin. And without thinking about it, he sits in the passenger's seat, instead of sitting in the backseat with her. They share banter that seems almost intimate, only private to the two of them on the drive to the station. They don't ignore her, or shut her out, but at times, she feels invisible.

She feels more invisible in their special place, because they have a special everything, unbeknownst to them of course. A special chair to sit in, a special way of sitting across each other, a special time for eating, a special kind of food they eat, a special way of communicating that really doesn't require that many words, everything in that place is special. The curious thing is, they don't know all these things, she knows, because she observes them, because she isn't part of them, she is an observer.

She observes when he notes how Abbie looks different, and she would think he is crazy, she doesn't look any different than the day before, she says, she is just wearing earrings today, or she's put on a different lip balm, or that she curled her hair the previous night. Oh, he replies with a small smile. She also observes how the other woman has a knack of giving him things that he likes, his favourite things (from this era), but of course to the other woman, it is only a thing between friends, just as she also thinks the amount of time they spent together when they weren't working, is normal, that it isn't a designed desire to remain in each other's company.

Most especially that, because when he isn't with Abbie, he speaks of her, he wonders about her out loud. He imagines (by telling her) how Abbie would react to something he is doing in the moment. To him, it is all harmless, but she knows, oh she knows. He touches her less, they do the things married people do together, but it's different, more out of engraved habit than actual want. It tortures her, because he makes frequent physical contact with her, the (constant) senseless fist bump for one. The way he takes something he wants from her hands freely, as though they are married and have all the rights to do whatever they want in each other's presence.

She never imagined that it got worse than Purgatory, and yet the proof is before her.

Her husband and Abbie, laughing heartily at something silly he did.

Her husband and Abbie, walking alongside each other, their steps exactly the same.

Abbie, digging her hand into his bag of chips (fries?).

Her husband holding the door open for Abbie, and she giving him a smile that no doubt has meaning between them.

Abbie calling him 'Ichabod' more often.

Her husband...her husband gazing singularly at her when she's pouring over some book with an absent hand in her hair.

Her husband falling in love with Abbie.

He doesn't know, neither does Abbie, but she does. Day in, and day out, she keeps waiting for them to know, because one day they will, and she...well, she'll have known it before they did.


End file.
